sparkline

Hixie’s Natural Log: Reflecting on 18 years at Google

On leaving the company, Hixie compares the Google of old to what it has become today:

Google’s culture eroded. Decisions went from being made for the benefit of users, to the benefit of Google, to the benefit of whoever was making the decision. Transparency evaporated. Where previously I would eagerly attend every company-wide meeting to learn what was happening, I found myself now able to predict the answers executives would give word for word. Today, I don’t know anyone at Google who could explain what Google’s vision is. Morale is at an all-time low. If you talk to therapists in the bay area, they will tell you all their Google clients are unhappy with Google.

AddyOsmani.com - Software Engineering - The Soft Parts

Write about what you learn. It pushes you to understand topics better. Sometimes the gaps in your knowledge only become clear when you try explaining things to others. It’s OK if no one reads what you write. You get a lot out of just doing it for you.

Lots of good advice from Addy:

Saying no is better than overcommitting.

How I think about solving problems - Human Who Codes

Is this really a problem?

Does the problem need to be solved?

Does the problem need to be solved now?

Does the problem need to be solved by me?

Is there a simpler problem I can solve instead?

Build a culture for better design – insights from the Leading Design Conference 2017

A great round-up of Leading Design—one of the best events I attended in 2017.

whiteink — Tech lead: an introduction

A series of posts on the decisions and trade-offs involved in being a tech lead:

I think good tech leads spend a lot of their time somewhere in between the two extremes, adjusting the balance as circumstances demand.

The Conjoined Triangles of Senior-Level Development - The Frontside

This is relevant to my interests because I think I’m supposed to be a senior developer. Or maybe a technical director. I’m really not sure (job titles suck).

Anyway, I very much appreciate the idea that a technical leadership position isn’t just about technical skills, but also communication and connectedness.

When we boiled down what we’re looking for, we came away with 12 traits that divide pretty cleanly along those three areas of responsibility: technical capability, leadership, and community.

For someone like me with fairly mediocre technical capability, this is reassuring.

Now if I only I weren’t also mediocre in those other areas too…

The Foundation of Technical Leadership · An A List Apart Article

Story of my life:

I have to confess I had no idea what a technical leader really does. I figured it out, eventually.

Seriously, this resonates a lot with what I find myself doing at Clearleft these days.